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Well, I'm feeling better, my wife has returne...
January 31, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Well, I'm feeling better, my wife has returned, I've caught up with e-mail and the boards, and I'm ready to leap back into the saddle again.
Last night was all about testing the new voices I added to the module. It took far longer than I thought, as I ran into all sorts of funny problems. Some of the sound clips had file names greater than 16 characters, which isn't allowed. I ended up renaming them all several times to make my life easier. It turns out there's also a maximum distance after which you can't hear spoken sounds. I ended up creating special objects just to play the sounds.
As for today, I now have all of the Proctor's dialog ready to be integrated into the first module. I'd also like to put some work into all the different quests I'm juggling at the moment, such as Woodhaven and the Dominator, which are close to being finished.
Update: It looks like the Bioware contest has begun! You can download the module here. Feel free to vote and speak your mind.
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I'm sick as a dog today, surviving by way of ...
January 28, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I'm sick as a dog today, surviving by way of painkillers and way too much caffiene. Add watching the kids for the weekend while my wife's out of town, and the chances of working on the project get pretty slim.
Friday was fairly productive, though. I got more sound clips from the voice actors and added them into the Firestarter module. The lengthy Proctor dialog for the first module was finished up as well, though I haven't managed to download the thing yet.
It brings up an important issue. The sound files we're creating are simply massive. With luck we can use mp3 or a similar compressed format for the voice clips. At the moment, we're stuck with wav files, which are ending up being hundreds of megabytes in size. I think we're going to end up creating a "big" and "light" version just for development, otherwise our dial-up team members will be stuck passing CDs around.
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Progress continues
January 27, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Progress continues. I did a few more walkthroughs of a non-voice version of the Firestarter module last night, so I'm fairly satisfied that things are working as I want them. The only minor change was adding a few more alignment changes through a particular dialog. If you really pushed it, you could swing a full ten points in evil (which is always the easiest to gain), nearly that many for chaotic and lawful, and six or so points towards good alignment. I'm not sure all my side quests will change alignment quite so much or have quite this many options, but it's a nice goal when I can manage it.
In any case, I hope to upload the contest entry this morning when time permits. Hopefully it'll be received well.
I also worked more on Woodhaven, adding in more dialog. Strangely, I'm more excited about what happens after the quest is resolved than the quest itself. Right now the dialog I'm writing feels like the necessary support for the interesting aspects of the area. There's lots of scripting that goes along with it too, hopefully something I can make some serious progress with today.
The voice actors continue to do their thing. I'm hoping that within a week or so, I'll have all of Firestarter finished. Voice acting in a game completely changes the way it sounds. Great stuff.
Update: Okay, the game submission is in. The tentative plan is to upload the version with the voice acting in a week or so. Already we're finishing up the last of the voice acting. Very exciting.
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After two painfully busy days, I finally got ...
January 26, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 After two painfully busy days, I finally got a chance to hunker down and put in some real work. I'm also caught up with all my e-mail and such, which is a nice feeling indeed.
Flick finished recording one of the main characters lines in Firestarter and it's turned out sounding simply great. I've thrown all his dialog into the module itself and did a brief test this morning. I'm waiting on one more main NPC and then assorted villager comments. If all goes well, I'll probably submit the "light" version tomorrow to Bioware, though I'll have to do a bit of final testing to assure myself that it all works properly.
I made a somewhat last minute dialog change yesterday, adding in some more branching. VivianC reported that a particular dialog was a tad too linear, which after looking at it I decided was very much true. I was sneaky about it and did it without having to record any new lines.
I also worked on the second module some more. The Chronmancer quest that I slaved away on is now integrated into the main module. You can use the QA thingie to teleport yourself to the island and get started on the adventure. After Firestarter is finalized, I'll do the same for that.
I added more Dominator dialog in and will likely work on that some more today. I don't think I'm too far away from finishing up that quest.
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It was another crazy busy day yesterday, whic...
January 25, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
It was another crazy busy day yesterday, which was unpleasant. The emails and such are still piling up, though I'm going to make some time for them today, come hell or high water.
I did manage to type up some of my written dialog yesterday, putting more work on the Dominator quest. I still have more to type and a fair bit of scripted combat to put in place. Still, it's slowly getting done.
The module is broken up into two phases, with four quests for the first phase. So far, Chronomancer and Firestarter are essentially done, with Dominator and Woodhaven over halfway finished each. After that, I have four others to do before the module is considered complete. I'd also like to throw in all sorts of side quests, similarly to what I've done with Port Brighton.
The next two modules are still a little sketchy in my mind. I know the ultimate goal, but have yet to decide on the exact roadmap. The next module will have some significant undead themes. The final module is the one I'm tempted to throw some ideas from XCom into. We'll see how it goes.
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I was crazy busy yesterday, so not much happe...
January 24, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I was crazy busy yesterday, so not much happened on the gaming front. I have e-mails unread, discussion boards unvisited, and a list of recently found bugs unfixed.
On the plus side, I was stuck in some long and boring meetings yesterday and scribbled down a bit of dialog. I think I'm going to try something a bit unusual with the player's companions. In most RPGs, the player themselves get a chance for romance, but I thought I'd throw in the opportunity for your companions to find happiness as well. So far, I like the ideas I've sketched out. We'll see how far I take it.
As for today, I have a ton of dialog to type up and script. Hopefully it'll be less crazy.
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I made a ton of progress yesterday
January 23, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I made a ton of progress yesterday. The two main quest givers are in the game, along with their respective areas. I polished up the legal system a bit more. Committing murder results in imprisonment, rather than the guards and commoners ganging up on you to pummel you to death. They may toss in a few beatings first, just for fun. My son discovered a bug in the jail system when he set his jailer on fire pyrokinetically and was made it impossible to escape.
I even started in on the Dominator quest a bit more. You can now get to the combat portion of the module, which I'm hoping to script a bit to make interesting. I've got some dialog I need to get into the game, along with the necessary minions to make things interesting.
As an aside, my son and I have started playing Zelda: Wind Walker and having a great time. There's a number of elements in it that I'd like to see in Dark Waters. The islands with their unique styles, the interesting puzzle-solving, and the open-ocean sailing are all things I very much admire. My campaign will be much more adult, of course, but I still admire that little game's spirit.
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Yesterday's team meeting went well, with plen...
January 22, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Yesterday's team meeting went well, with plenty of pirate jokes and the like. I think we're on track for getting the voice actors organized for Firestarter, and of course the main campaign.
Yesterday I continued work on the crime and punishment aspect of the game. If you steal, you must pay a bounty or be sent to jail. Murderers go straight to jail. Of course, that's not the end of the game and a clever person can slip away.
I also worked on Port Brighton some more, putting in the Underground section. It's actually quite neat looking, though I'm eager to see what it'll look like in NWN2. I'm starting to connect up the various areas of the game, with Port Brighton being a fairly big hub for the player's assorted adventures.
If I get a chance today, I'll keep working on tying together the various areas. I have two main quest givers that still need to be added to the game, though I'm nearly there with one of them.
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Our team meeting starts in a few minutes, so ...
January 21, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Our team meeting starts in a few minutes, so I'm rushing about a bit this morning. I got a scripting piece working this morning that I had put off for awhile. You can now steal something and if caught, the NPC will report you when you leave the area. When you come back again, the guards will approach you and demand that you pay for your theft. If you do, your bounty is cleared and you're free to go. I've yet to get to the part where you're thrown in jail, though that's easy enough to do as well.
Yesterday was fairly busy, so I didn't get as much done as I'd like. I got some more villager dialog for Firestarter, which I put into the module. There was also some more issues QA reported (thanks PJJ). I think it's slowly approaching completion.
I did sneak in some torches that you can extinguish with the newly created water bomb. It's an homage to the water arrows of Thief. A few areas where rogues can be stealthy would be nice.
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To go hand-in-hand with my newfound pyromanic...
January 20, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 To go hand-in-hand with my newfound pyromanic streak, I decided to create a "water bomb" item that puts out fires. I thought it only fair if you accidentally set yourself or a companion ablaze, which seems to happen far too often in certain circumstances.
The voice acting scramble continues. I still have voice clips I need to get into Firestarter. We have a team meeting tomorrow morning and voice acting will likely be a big topic for us.
I'm pretty sure I can hit the deadline of the 30th for submissions, even with our "deluxe" version. It might just be a little exciting for the next week or so.
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I spent last night repeatedly setting a man o...
January 19, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I spent last night repeatedly setting a man on fire. A certain script wasn't working quite right, so after a fair bit of fiddling I finally managed to whip things into shape.
It looks like the writing contest has begun and submissions are being accepted. The deadline is the 30th, so I'm trying to scurry around and take care of last minute details. Sophia's dialog is all in the module, as is a single line from one of the villagers. I'm really hoping that I can get a bunch more in for the "deluxe" version of the submission.
Yesterday I actually had a chance to work on the Woodhaven area some more. There's a couple NPCs that I want to rethink how I've implemented them. I wrote a bunch of dialog for one, and I think there's a way I can reuse it for two, along with making things interesting for your companions. Slowly getting there . . .
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Yesterday was insanely busy, so I didn't do n...
January 18, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Yesterday was insanely busy, so I didn't do nearly as much as I'd like. I started going through the dialog for Sophia, one of the main characters in Firestarter, and attaching them to individual lines.
I also started the process of integrating the Chronomancer quest into the main module. Where possible, I think I plan on making quests stand-alone during development and then integrating it into the main module for final QA. Life tends to be a bit simpler when I'm working with smaller chunks of content.
Hopefully today I can hunker down and finish the dialog, as well as catching up with my various message boards and correspondences.
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I had lots of fun yesterday getting the tatto...
January 17, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I had lots of fun yesterday getting the tattoos and earrings working properly. The earrings were already in, but I think there were only two choices to select from. I've now expanded it to a half dozen and I'll be sure to add a few along the way.
The tattoos got even more work. You can get up to three tattoos, which work similarly to scrolls. Along your travels, you can come across tattoo patterns and sell them to the tattoo parlor, at which point, you can get them as well.
The hardest part was limiting the player to only three tattoos. I ended up using a standard store, which seemed the simplest interface. Unfortunately there's no way via scripting to close a store when the player gets the maximum amount of tattoos. Instead, I empty out the store, so it's not possible to buy anything else. I then had to fill up the store every time, but it turned out to be easier than I thought.
Hopefully today I can start in on assigning voice clips to the Firestarter module and get that ready to go. I suspect there will be some QA tasks for me as well. The fun never ends.
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Even though Razvan is theoretically busy full...
January 16, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Even though Razvan is theoretically busy full time with schoolwork, he seems to be unable to completely stay away from modeling software. I think this latest entry will become a statue, guarding something terribly important.
Firestarter hit the testing phase this morning. I spent yesterday doing some more polishing and tweaking scripts. Still, I'm sure they'll come up with various things I missed.
I'm having to make some painful choices with the voice actors. There were a couple brilliant auditions that cracked me up. Unfortunately I can only have one in the game, so I made some assignments that hopefully end up being both funny and true to the story.
I did some daydreaming and long-term planning yesterday as well, scribbling on paper as my daughter played with PlayDough. I generally know where I'm going, but certain pieces of the campaign shift about the closer I get to them. I think the second module is going to be the biggest, joining two modules into one to increase the player's freedom.
I'm not sure how much time I'll have today. I'd like to go back and work some more on unfinished quests. I've also been itching to get the tattoo scripts working.
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I finally got around to putting Danmar's ligh...
January 15, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I finally got around to putting Danmar's lighthouse into the prototype. It was surprisingly difficult, as the NWN engine is very picky about having the model set up properly. All modifiers have to be collapsed, all transforms reset, all geometry needs to be turned into meshes, and so on. Still, it ended up looking remarkably good. I can't wait to see what it looks like in the NWN2 engine, though I suppose I'll settle on NWN for the moment.
I'm hoping to better organize the teams models and textures, finding a common location in the repository for them all. Right now they're scattered across multiple locations and I sometimes forget where things are. It took me a week to get the manor model and all the textures to Juliano, for example.
Firestarter continues to be worked on and polished. The journal entries needed to be fleshed out a bit more yesterday, which was fairly fun to write. I think the scripting is mostly in place, though it could still use some more time. I still have a bit of time before my family wakes up and descends upon me like tiny locusts. We'll see what I manage to find some time for.
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I put in some more testing and fixing time fo...
January 14, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I put in some more testing and fixing time for the Firestarter quest and started organizing voice actors to start recording their lines. I'm in the enviable position of having a number of well qualified voice actors, so it's pretty easy to fill roles. Of course, it also means I have some painful decisions when doling out some of the more popular characters.
I even managed some time with Woodhaven, working on the arena and creature spawning scripts. It's not quite time for debugging, but it's slowly getting there.
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I made a lot of good progress yesterday
January 13, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I made a lot of good progress yesterday. The Firestarter quest is "finished", in the sense that I'm in the testing phase. I found a slew of bugs this morning, but actually managed to finish the entire quest. I think I'm going to ask the voice actors for a rush recording session.
I even managed to get back to the Woodhaven area a bit. The area maps are essentially finished, though I've got a bunch of dialog and scripting to work on. I'm crossing my fingers a bit, hoping the little game you play there is actually fun.
Once these quests actually get complete, I'd like to start integrating them in to the main module. Right now the Chronomancer quest is done, Firestarter is nearly done, and hopefully Woodhaven will be next. Hopefully Sunjammer can get the High Seas component to a state where I can integrate it in, letting testers sail from island to island. I do have a magic QA item that allows for instant teleportation, but it would be nice to see something more official.
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The big news for the day is that we have a we...
January 12, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
The big news for the day is that we have a wedding on the team. Our team manager, Elizabeth and Ove, our web and testing person, are planning on getting married. I would like to have said that I played cupid in some small way, but the reality is that they've been together for eight years. Ah, young love.
I made a fair bit of progress yesterday, mostly around voice recording and debugging the first module. There's a really annoying bug that I hopefully squashed. I also worked on the scripting for Firestarter some more, getting the gravedigging and cross-dressing corpse burning working properly.
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I made some good progress yesterday, typing u...
January 11, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
I made some good progress yesterday, typing up the majority of the dialog for the Firestarter quest. I've got a fair bit of scripting to do yet, but it's nice to feel like I'm in the home stretch.
A few new bugs from the first module were reported, so I might actually turn my focus to that for a bit. I also got a new batch of voice recordings to attach to things.
No rest for the weary.
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It's been busier than I would have liked thes...
January 10, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 It's been busier than I would have liked these last couple days. I did manage to work on the Firestarter quest a bit this morning. Like in any good pirate story, there's an awful lot of digging. I think you can now dig up all the evidence, treasure, and odd bits of loot except for one that's, well, rather smelly. I think all the items and such are created now. I have a few more journal entries to write, though I added another this morning.
The main thing that remains is the dialog and scripting to support the various endings. With luck, I can find some time to pull that together today and slowly move towards testing.
I really like the way this quest has turned out and I feel it's the stronger of the two entries for the contest. I may end up just submitting this one over the other.
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Some amazing new media came out for NWN2 yest...
January 08, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Some amazing new media came out for NWN2 yesterday. The renders in particular caught my eye. There's such a huge difference between the old NWN creatures and these new ones that it's night and day. It's exciting to think that later this year I'll actually get to put my hands on the game.
Yesterday I drank four cups of strong tea, hoping for divine inspiration in the Firestarter quest. Fortunately it came to me and I've plotted out four main ways to finish the quest, along with a variety of minor changes. I'm also including what I like to call "Scooby Doo" elements, letting the player find clues and unravel mysteries.
To set the ambiance just right, I've switched everything to nightfall and put in what visual and auditory touches are possible within NWN. So far I'm really liking this quest, and am excited to finish it up. I have a bit more dialog to write, some journal entries, and a fair amount of scripting. Great fun.
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I've been working away at the Firestarter que...
January 07, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been working away at the Firestarter quest these last couple days. Last night and this morning I mostly focused on debugging some scripts. I also wrote a bit more of Sophia's dialog. There's still a fuzzy part in the middle that I'm waiting on inspiration for. I think I have the evil path fairly well defined in my head, but the good path isn't quite solidified. I really like having so much branching and freedom after the very rigid structure of the Chronomancer quest.
The voice actors continue to amaze me. One of the new recruits has tried out for one of the main villagers in the Firestarter quest and is simply hysterical. All the extras, from voice acting to music to new models are really going to make this campaign stand out. Hopefully it'll also distract from any horrible design decisions I've made along the way.
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Work plods along
January 05, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Work plods along. I fiddled some more with the Chronomancer quest. There's now two bonus goodies you can pick up if you're clever or stubbornly persistent. I did a bit of polishing and of course moved the word count closer to 5,000. Silly me.
I started in on Sophia's dialog for the Firestarter quest yesterday. It's tricky hitting the right notes with her, though I feel I'm doing okay. I also want to introduce some complexity around completing the quest and haven't quite settled on the specifics. Still, I feel pretty good about how this quest is coming along.
I did some work with the voice actors yesterday, putting up a page that showed all the dialog, actors, and assignments. All I can say is that the people assigned to Heather and Daniel have their work cut out for them.
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Well, I spent a good chunk of time last night...
January 04, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I spent a good chunk of time last night and this morning debugging and adding more options. I'm up to 4,800 words, but I very much like the additional choices the player has. Some are fairly obvious ways to get killed, but some are less straightforward. There's even a way to get an extra treat from the quest, though like the rest of the area, it's fairly convoluted.
I'm debating how much more to fiddle with the quest. I could add more branching and options, more ways to get yourself killed. I could probably polish the scripts a bit more. I should take a look at the writing one last time. Still, it's feeling increasingly close to finished.
The main advantage of the Chronomancer quest is that it's likely to be very different than most things out there. The two problems I see are limited player choice and general confusion as to what's going on. I'll continue to listen to my team's feedback to emphasize the first and minimize the latter issues.
Hopefully today I can start in on Sophia's dialog for the Firestarter quest. I feel a bit like an actor, trying to "get into the character". At this point I'm trying to imagine what her life is like, how she got to where she is and why she's willing to go along with it. Tricky.
Update: It looks like the Vault interview finally got posted. The delay was unfortunately my fault, due to vacation. Fortunately I was able to pass along some images and sound clips too, so it turned out rather well.
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Today wasn't quite as productive as yesterday
January 03, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
Today wasn't quite as productive as yesterday. I came down with a bit of a cold, so I've been less than creative as I drag my body about, leaving an oozing trail as I go. The first round of QA was done on the Chronomancer quest and people pointed out the biggest flaw to the quest.
At the moment, there's not enough player choice. It's all dialog-based and there's a few branches, but most of the time the player is simply going from point to point. I think what I need to do is add more branches, many of them wrong choices, and let the player fail. It'll play hell with my word count, but I'd rather do that than have something that isn't fun.
The Firestarter quest is very different and less controlled. In some ways, it may be the stronger of the two entries.
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Yesterday was quite productive
January 02, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Yesterday was quite productive. I started in on the Firestarter quest in earnest, continuing the dialog I had begun and getting some of the scripting in place. Working with a 4x4 area in the toolset and not being allowed to use any outside content has been an interesting creative challenge. I really have to make every tile count and I find myself fiddling with the map over and over to get things just right.
The Firestarter quest is much smaller in scope than Chronomancer, which means I can be far more generous with my word count. There's still a lot of branching, journal entries, and the like that I can include. I've also yet to start any dialog for one of the main NPCs. Overall, the tone of the writing is a mix of ironic comedy and sorrow. It's an interesting blend to work with, and hopefully I can do it justice.
There's a bit of scripting, though it's fairly light. I worked on the most troublesome part last night, making sure my idea would actually work. It took me awhile to figure out why the game was trying to spawn an infinite number of objects. I did a quick walk through of the system and it seems to be working just fine now. For the technically minded, I was looping through objects with a certain tag, destroying them, and creating new ones with the same tag. Adding a delay in the creation fixed the problem nicely.
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Happy New Year from all us clones
January 01, 2006 by Adam in NWN2
 Happy New Year from all us clones. I was having problems with clones yesterday as I went through debugging the Chronomancer quest. I think I have most of the weird issues sorted out. The other amusing bug is that I accidentally froze the PC's animations and she drifted from point to point after that, like a statue on wheels.
I think most of the big issues are sorted out. I've yet to run through the entire thing, though I've extensively tested each phase and several blocks of phases. I also want to go through with a spell checker and do some careful editing. This is a writing contest, after all.
The word count is at 4,500, about a thousand over the theoretical limit for the contest. Fortunately it's supposed to be a target, so I think I'm safe.
I also had a solid hour for writing, thanks to my daughter who can only nap in the car. I started in on the Firestarter quest, which I'm liking so far. The word count should be much lower, so I can spend that "extra" on nice things such as journal entries, conversation branching, and the like.
Tomorrow I return to work and life theoretically returns to normal. I'll be reading e-mail then and hopefully catching up with the real world. Wish me luck.
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Links
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Why We Fight
About Me
I've won multiple awards for my Neverwinter Nights modules, which I've been working on since the year 2000.
In the real world, I'm a web developer for a healthcare organization. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
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